Invited by Prof. MA Li, director of CAS Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Environment, Prof. Roee Diamant from University of Haifa in Israel came to IACAS for a four-day visit and gave a presentation titled “Underwater Acoustic Communication: From the Physical Layer to the Transport Layer” on January 23, 2018. More than 200 staff and graduate students attended.

The report covers a number of topics, such as underwater communication, underwater navigation and positioning, underwater networks, marine animal investigation and protection.

When it comes to survey of marine animal life habits, Prof. Roee Diamant shared some interesting stories. For one, researchers tied signal transmitters to lobsters in order to track their movements, mate status and social patterns. In another situation, by measuring the resonant frequency of turtle's chest, it was recognized that a sea turtle entered a dangerous area and drove the straggling turtle away to protect them. Prof. Roee Diamant even dived into the water to mount electronic tag on a shark to study its life. Sea trial videos and 3D animations make the report vivid and attractive.

In the Q&A session, Prof. Roee Diamant answered questions about his research, and expressed welcome to students who want to visit university of Haifa.

Prof. Roee Diamant is coordinator of EU H2020 project SYMBIOSIS (BG-14 track), and leads the underwater Acoustic and Navigation Laboratory (ANL) as an Assistant Professor at Department of Marine Technology, University of Haifa. He received his PhD from Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia in 2013, and his Bachelor and Master degrees from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in 2002 and 2007, respectively.

From 2001 to 2009, he worked as a project manager and system engineer in Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israel, where he developed a commercial underwater modem with network capabilities. In 2015 and 2016, he was a visiting Prof. at University of Padova, Italy. In 2009, he received Israel Excellent Worker First Place Award from Israeli Presidential Institute. In 2010, he received NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. In addition, Prof. Roee Diamant has three Best Paper awards so far.